Social Interactions and Communication

Research on social interaction in virtual environments was pioneered in ReCVEB. Understanding verbal and non-verbal interpersonal communication in VR, combined with measures of physiological stress, provides insight into human response to difficult situations. Virtual environments enable precise control of the situations to examine the key variables involved in communication under stress or the primary features that help us parse other’s intentions and behaviors. This in turn will lead to improvements in training across a number of domains, such as responses to public emergencies, communication practices for remote teams, and people with communication difficulties.

Selected Publications

Afifi, W. A., Gangi, K., Blascovich, J., Afifi, T. A., Cornik, J., Merrill, A., Ryan, W., Sterling, K. (2016). Mothers' impact on their daughters' cardiovascular reactivity in a high-threat context: An immersive virtual environment study. Human Communication Research, 42, 371-395. doi.org/10.1111/hcre.12085

Bailenson, J. N., Beall, A. C., Loomis, J., Blascovich, J. & Turk, M. (2005). Transformed social interaction, augmented gaze, and social influence in immersive virtual environments. Human Communication Research, 31 (4), 511-537. doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2958.2005.tb00881.x

Bailenson, J. N., Beall, A. C., Loomis, J., Blascovich, J. & Turk, M. (2004). Transformed social interaction: Decoupling representation from behavior and form in collaborative virtual environments. Presence: Teleoperators & Virtual Environments, 13 (4), 428-441. doi.org/10.1162/1054746041944803